1. Piers Morgan began his career in 1988 at the tabloid The Sun.
87 Facts About Piers Morgan
1. 2.
From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was fired in 2004.
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Piers Morgan was the editorial director of First News from 2006 to 2007.
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In 2014, Piers Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's US operation.
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Piers Morgan has been a judge on the television talent shows America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent.
6.
In 2008, Piers Morgan won The Celebrity Apprentice US, appearing with future US president Donald Trump.
7.
Piers Morgan was a presenter for TalkTV, hosting the program Piers Morgan Uncensored from 2022 to 2024, before leaving the network and moving the show to YouTube.
8.
Piers Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror during the period in which the paper was implicated in the phone hacking scandal.
9.
In 2011, Piers Morgan denied having ever hacked a phone and stated that he had not, "to [his] knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone".
10.
The judge in a 2023 court case against Mirror Group Newspapers found truthful evidence that Piers Morgan knew about private phone hacking from a reporter, shared a method of phone hacking with a media professional while being questioned about a reporting scoop, and that Piers Morgan played another's private phone message in the newsroom he had received from another tabloid editor.
11.
In March 2021, Piers Morgan left the programme with immediate effect, following his criticism of the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview.
12.
Piers Morgan's father died when Morgan was 11 months old; his mother later married Glynne Pughe-Morgan, a Welsh pub landlord who later worked in the meat distribution business, and he took his stepfather's surname.
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Piers Morgan was educated at the independent Cumnor House prep school between the ages of seven and 13, then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, followed by Priory School, Lewes, for sixth form.
14.
Piers Morgan began to work as a freelance at The Sun in 1988, at this point dropping his double-barrelled name.
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Piers Morgan told Hunter Davies in December 1994 that he was personally recruited by Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie to work on the newspaper's show business column "Bizarre", his first high-profile post.
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Piers Morgan left this post in 1995 shortly after publishing photographs of Catherine Victoria Lockwood, then wife of Charles, Earl Spencer, leaving an addictive disorders clinic in Surrey.
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The headline was accompanied by an open letter from Piers Morgan parodying Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939.
18.
Roy Greenslade wrote in August 1999 that Piers Morgan's editorship "has made a huge difference: his enormous enthusiasm, determination and focus is a major plus".
19.
Piers Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job.
20.
However, Piers Morgan refused to admit that the photographs were faked, and stated that the abuse shown in the photographs is similar to the sort of abuse that was happening in the British Army in Iraq at the time.
21.
Piers Morgan came under criticism for his "boasting" about phone hacking from Conservative MP Louise Mensch, who has since apologised for these accusations.
22.
In July 2011, in a sequence of articles, political blogger Paul Staines alleged that while editor of the Daily Mirror in 2002 Piers Morgan published a story concerning the affair of Sven-Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson while knowing it to have been obtained by phone hacking.
23.
On 20 December 2011, Piers Morgan appeared as a witness by satellite link from the United States at the Leveson Inquiry.
24.
Piers Morgan said that she had never authorised Morgan, or anybody, to access or listen to her voicemails.
25.
Piers Morgan recalled a lunch with the Mirror editor in September 2002 at which Morgan outlined the means of hacking [or accessing] a mobile phone voicemail, using the SIM card network's default security code.
26.
On 6 December 2013, Piers Morgan was interviewed, under caution, by police officers from Operation Weeting investigating phone hacking allegations at Mirror Group Newspapers during his tenure as editor.
27.
The BBC reported that it had seen legal papers showing that although the alleged hacking could have taken place as early as 1998, the bulk of the alleged wrongdoing took place in the early 2000s when Piers Morgan was the Daily Mirror editor.
28.
Piers Morgan's statement was met with widespread criticism including from the former chair of the Independent Press Standards Organisation Sir Alan Moses.
29.
Piers Morgan was editorial director at First News, responsible for bringing in celebrity involvement.
30.
Piers Morgan referred to the role as "editorial overlord and frontman".
31.
In 2007, Piers Morgan was filmed falling off a Segway, breaking three ribs.
32.
In September 2014, Piers Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's US operation and wrote several columns a week.
33.
Piers Morgan's career expanded into television presenting before he left the Daily Mirror.
34.
Piers Morgan presented a three-part television documentary series for the BBC titled The Importance of Being Famous, about fame and the manner in which celebrities are covered by modern media.
35.
At the annual Pride of Britain Awards broadcast on ITV, Piers Morgan chaired a panel of prominent people who had chosen the recipients of the awards from 1999 to 2006.
36.
Piers Morgan co-hosted a current affairs interview show on Channel 4 with Amanda Platell, Morgan and Platell.
37.
Piers Morgan was chosen by Simon Cowell as a replacement for himself because of the conditions of his American Idol contract.
38.
Piers Morgan appeared as a celebrity contestant on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice in 2007 to raise money for the BBC charity telethon Comic Relief.
39.
In 2007, Piers Morgan appeared as a judge for the second season of America's Got Talent and appeared as a judge on Britain's Got Talent on ITV with Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell.
40.
Piers Morgan presented You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous on BBC One.
41.
Piers Morgan fronted a three-part documentary about Sandbanks for ITV entitled Piers Morgan on Sandbanks in January 2008.
42.
Piers Morgan made some interview specials, plus three more documentaries from various countries.
43.
The programme returned for a second series in 2010 when Piers Morgan visited Las Vegas in one episode.
44.
From 13 to 17 April 2015, Piers Morgan guest-hosted five episodes of Good Morning Britain on ITV and became a permanent co-host in November 2015, appearing alongside Susanna Reid and Charlotte Hawkins.
45.
Piers Morgan often clashed with Reid, who said of her colleague: "You can't help but go into battle with him every morning".
46.
Piers Morgan left the series in March 2021 following a controversy over his remarks about Oprah with Meghan and Harry, which included a heated on-air argument with Alex Beresford.
47.
In October 2018, Piers Morgan appeared as a cameo on Hollyoaks.
48.
Piers Morgan was the winner of the US celebrity version of The Apprentice in 2008.
49.
Piers Morgan was called "ruthless, arrogant, evil and obnoxious" by Trump in the final.
50.
Piers Morgan stated he personally would not vote for Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election.
51.
Piers Morgan predicted Trump's election as President of the United States and described himself as a close friend.
52.
Piers Morgan interviewed Trump on Good Morning Britain in March 2016.
53.
Piers Morgan appeared on ITV's Loose Women panel show in late January 2017, and was challenged to repudiate Trump.
54.
Piers Morgan stated that he disagreed with him on many issues relating to gun control, climate change, abortion, and the "Muslim travel ban".
55.
Piers Morgan criticised Trump after Trump had retweeted Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the small far-right fascist party Britain First, in late November 2017.
56.
In December 2018, Piers Morgan wrote a letter to Trump formally applying to become White House Chief of Staff.
57.
Piers Morgan claimed that the pandemic and Trump's election loss that followed had "sent him nuts".
58.
In 2023, Piers Morgan said the GOP needs winner Ron DeSantis, not political suicide bomber Trump after an Interview, where DeSantis expressed his confidence that he would beat Joe Biden in the general election.
59.
Piers Morgan was briefly a friend of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex before she became the Duchess of Sussex, but said she cut him off early in her relationship with Prince Harry.
60.
Piers Morgan has been a regular critic of the couple since then, alleging they are hypocrites and claiming the Duchess is a social climber.
61.
On Good Morning Britain on 8 and 9 March 2021, Piers Morgan said he doubted the accuracy of the account given by the Duchess of Sussex, in the interview Oprah with Meghan and Harry with Oprah Winfrey, in which she spoke of her mental health issues, which included suicidal thoughts, and she and Harry alleged racist comments from the extended family.
62.
However, Neil later said that talks were affected by a disagreement: "he's [Piers Morgan] got his own idea of what he is worth and we [GB News] have a slightly different idea of what he's worth".
63.
On 29 November 2023, Morgan used his Piers Morgan Uncensored show to reveal the names of two members of the British Royal Family who had allegedly had conversations about the skin colour of Meghan's baby, mentioned during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.
64.
On 21 January 2020, Piers Morgan was accused of racism and received 1,095 Ofcom complaints for his comments relating to a Chinese dairy advert in which he said "He's using ching chong ching milk".
65.
Piers Morgan spoke over the advert, saying "ching chang cho jo".
66.
Piers Morgan was accused online of using language that is used to antagonise Chinese people and of mocking the Chinese language.
67.
Gill said Piers Morgan had made this up and called him a "pretty objectionable self-publicist".
68.
In May 2011, Piers Morgan banned actor Hugh Grant from his shows on CNN and ITV after Grant spoke out against the need for the tabloid press.
69.
In September 2012, it was reported that Piers Morgan had banned actor Kelsey Grammer.
70.
Piers Morgan responded that he had "never been treated in such a disgraceful manner" by a guest.
71.
In 2015, Cleese stated that he "truly detested" Piers Morgan and had avoided him in a restaurant.
72.
Piers Morgan said he thought Morgan was "in jail", erroneously stating that Morgan had "admitted" to authorising phone-hacking.
73.
When Cleese's tweet about detesting Piers Morgan became his most popular to date, Cleese said "clearly I must insult the slimy, attention-seeking little prole more often".
74.
Piers Morgan joked that he was glad to have been able to make Cleese "popular again".
75.
Piers Morgan strongly objected to the Women's March on Washington on 21 January 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration, describing protesters as "rabid feminists" and the multiple protests as being "vacuous".
76.
Piers Morgan accused McGregor of being a "paedophile-loving hypocrite" for his past support of Roman Polanski.
77.
On 16 September 2021, News UK announced its new channel TalkTV would launch in 2022, with Piers Morgan being the first name signed up.
78.
Piers Morgan married Marion Shalloe, a hospital ward sister, in 1991.
79.
Piers Morgan is a supporter of Premier League football club Arsenal.
80.
Piers Morgan was an outspoken critic of former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and called for his sacking on many occasions.
81.
Piers Morgan identified as a supporter of the Conservative Party in a 1994 interview, saying he was "still basically a Tory", but expressed admiration for the recently elected Labour Party leader Tony Blair, saying "he's not radical, speaks well and makes sense".
82.
Piers Morgan voted for the Animal Welfare Party in the 2015 general election due to his low opinion of all the main party leaders.
83.
Piers Morgan voted against Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum but voted for the Kensington Conservative candidate in the 2019 general election because of Boris Johnson's commitment to honour the result of the referendum.
84.
In November 2024, Piers Morgan identified as a centrist, adding "woke liberals are too loony-left for me".
85.
On 24 July 2021, Piers Morgan said he had developed COVID-19 after the Euro 2020 final, despite being fully vaccinated.
86.
Piers Morgan added that a strong fever, violent coughing, chills and sneezing fits left him exhausted and fearing what might come next.
87.
Piers Morgan has often spoken of his Catholic faith and believes in an afterlife, but does not "go to Confession, probably because it would take [him] too long".